Anime Mid-Season Reviews!

Well, I’m at it again with one of my favorite ways to procrastinate in life. Once again, here’s another anime review segment where I tell you a bit about my favorite animes this season. And for the love of god, Dad, it’s pronounced “Anna May” not “Annie Meh.” Anyway, let’s get on with it!

Alice and Zoroku

Oh my god cute AF. A magical girl crosses paths with an old man who doesn’t give a shit about magical abilities and nonsense ensues. It’s a heartwarming tale about a girl named Sana who has magical abilities called “Dreams of Alice” which allows the users to manifest stuff in exchange for calories. She escapes from a horrible facility that does experiments and whatnot with her and other people with these abilities and vows to DESTROY THEM AAAALLLLL.

She then runs into Zoroku and is like, “I’ll grant all your wishes if you help me,” and he’s all like, “Nah, girl, this ain’t no magical girl manga shit. This is REAL LIFE.” And she goes on to mess with his life by getting him involved with all her problems when he doesn’t (necessarily) want to be.

They got finished with the main problem quick, so I wonder what they’ll do with the rest of the season.

You can watch this on Crunchyroll and Funimation.

KADO: The Right Answer

It annoys and fascinates me that this sort of anime gets the CGI treatment, but uses regular animation a third of the time. The switching back and forth bothers me. Just pick one dammit!

But besides that, this anime has some damn good plotlines. A space alien from another dimension stops by with his cube of messing-all-our-lives-up and takes a plane full of people hostage. This alien dude (with the help of a foreign relations guy) then proceeds to give humanity the solution to all our energy crisis needs. WAM! (This solution is literally called Wam.)

The problem is, he gives this solution to Japan, and then other countries are like, “No, man, all your Wam is belong to us,” and Japan is like, “But I like the Wam,” and the other countries are like, “Don’t make us call out Trump!” and Japan is like, “Nooooooooooooo…”

So if you want a fun mind tripper, try this show out. You can watch it on Crunchyroll and Funimation.

Akashic Records of Bastard Magical Instructor

Damn, I was about to drop this one after the first episode, where the main character dude is like, “I don’t give a crap about any of y’all,” and the tsundere character is all, “Baka baka bakaaaaaa!” And the school outfits are only oversexualized for the girls and, well what do you know, ANOTHER FREAKING HIGH SCHOOL MAGIC ACADEMY SETTING ANIME! Goodness christ!

But hey, it got better, at least. There’s still fan service, but there is a decent plot if you can get past the shitty, cliched and downright mundane first episode which does nothing to justify the rest of the series. If you can get over that, then by all means it’s a fun watch.

You can watch it on Crunchyroll and Funimation. (Also, what does “akashic” mean???)

Sakura Quest

No, this has nothing to do with Sakura Clicker. Don’t even look that stuff up!

This story is about a pink-haired girl fresh outta college and fresh outta options when she gets drafted to the boonies to become their queen.

She is dragged into this role because a literally insane old man misspelled the name of a movie star (who actually turned out to be dead) who he wanted in the role instead of her. And so she is pulled along with his overly optimistic sidekick to draw in tourists to a lowly town who spent their budget on a colorful castle that has since become forgotten.

She then meets up with a disenchanted blogger, an occultic otaku and a jack-of-all-trades who used to be a side character of some TV show.

It’s definitely more grounded in reality than most shows, which is part of its charm for me. But the main character’s decisions to try to market this town made me facepalm more times than I care to count.

You can watch this on Crunchyroll and Funimation.

Royal Tutor

Who doesn’t like watching an OP tutor who looks like a child teach a bunch of royal pricks how to be good rulers of a kingdom?

I just love how the opening and ending make it look like a harem anime… or IS IT?

The princes have their own unique traits and personality. You have the idiot-tsundere prince, the harem prince, the looks-tough-but-is-the-cutest-thing-ever prince and the studious-but-thirsty-for-the-tutor prince.

And then there’s their dad who looks younger than them all.

The tutor is definitely best boy; he’s OP as hell with a monotone voice that is so cute when he gets upset. Not to mention his chibi form for when he messes with the princes.